In the old days, this column would have covered last May's High End show in Munich and T.H.E. Show Newport Beach. Today, live online blogging renders obsolete magazine reports that arrive in your mailbox months after the events. It also makes life difficult for a monthly magazine columnist. I wasn't home a good part of the month, so how much serious listening do you think I managed?
But what a month!
Colleen Murphy's Bowie Fest
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Now step into the Southport, Connecticut, workshop of Treehaus Audiolab, where Rich Pinto crafts Treehaus Audiolab's products, loosely but richly inspired…
The quest for vinyl quiet seems, at best, quixotic. By "vinyl quiet" I don't mean "quiet vinyl," which we now reliably get from pressing plants like QRP, RTI, Pallas, and a few others. I'm referring to makes of phono preamplifiers who set as a primary design goal electronic "quiet," ie, an absence or minimum of electronic noise. A stylus coursing through the groove of even the quietest LP still produces a considerable amount of noise. If you've ever made a digital file from an LP using an analog-to-digital converter equipped with a level…
Forgive the pun: Scores of women are active today as classical composers, but we pay attention to relatively few. To right that imbalance, check out the eight works by British women on Dance of the Night Sky, the Black Oak Ensemble's third release—all of them intriguing—from Chicago-based nonprofit label Cedille Records.
According to Elinor Olin's liner notes, these compositions offer "a sense of…
Since late last year, Goose has emerged as one of the most talked-about bands in rock. Building on its jam-band roots, the group recently headlined Madison Square Garden, got booked for top slots at major summer festivals, and drew attention from national news outlets. Everything Must Go, Goose's fourth album, feels like both a culmination of that momentum and a bold new chapter. It's a 14-track, 91-minute journey through…
Adam O'Farrill has gained well-deserved recognition as a leading light among contemporary jazz trumpeters. But as far as I'm concerned, nothing in his discography foreshadows the scale or vision of his new octet project. For These Streets is a work of extreme ambition and originality.
It's a concept album, inspired by O'…
In an intriguing, surprisingly short program, violist Rachel Yonan and pianist Kwan Yi mix three intentionally sparse "modern" pieces by Arvo Pärt and Sir James MacMillan with Robert Schumann's four far more effusive Märchenbilder (fairy tales). The contrasts are many, and the rewards are considerable.
Those rewards are enhanced by Daniel Shores's commitment to recording in DXD…
An early memory of the Sears bike is me backpedaling furiously approaching a sturdy mailbox. Ten-speed bikes don't have coaster brakes. I've still got a scar to prove it.
That would have been around 1978. Taking inflation into account, that bike would cost about $400 today. Sure, it was possible then to pay much…
Of all the genius-level musical talent to come from Louisiana, few have had more far-reaching influence outside their niche than the singer, songwriter, and marvelous chromatic piano key accordionist Clifton Chenier. A native of Leonville, Louisiana, and the son of a diatonic accordion player, Chenier, who died in 1987, has become a towering…
Pro-Ject, the renowned Austrian audio manufacturer, made a striking impact with its static display at High End Munich 2025. Its new products, though silently presented, conveyed a powerful message.
Jakob Dirnberger, representing Pro-Ject, showcased a vast array of turntables, a compact portable system, a record flattener, and legacy products—creating a compelling and sometimes humorous presentation.
The RPM 1 Pro turntable ($TBA) is an all-new design with a 9" tonearm, Central Mass Point with new adjustable platter bearing, balanced 5-pin outputs…